


Surviving Camp: Packanack Lodge

by Ndfarmer80



Series: Surviving Camp [1]
Category: Friday the 13th Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25993687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ndfarmer80/pseuds/Ndfarmer80
Summary: Stephanie Hewitt is a collector of stories. She has become interested in the stories of survivors of the Jason murders. She goes about, finding these survivors and recording the tales that they have about their experiences. She hopes that the information that she finds from each person will help point to the actual real story behind the myth that has become Jason Voorhees and Camp Blood. Throughout her interviews, she begins to learn not only about Camp Blood, but more about herself, and how she is tied to the ghosts living beyond the trees surrounding the lake.
Series: Surviving Camp [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1886584





	Surviving Camp: Packanack Lodge

**Surviving Camp: Packanack Lodge**

April 12th, 2019…

10 a.m.

It’s been three days since my last entry. I have traveled nearly three hundred miles now, leaving campus from Blacksburg, Virginia to Wessex County in New Jersey. I have listened and read every report about the famous, or should I say infamous Camp Crystal Lake, better known to the locals as Camp Blood. From every report, there is one continuous thread of belief that is shared. For everyone interviewed, one name kept coming up as the only explanation given for who had committed all of the heinous murders the camp was plagued with for nearly twenty years. 

Jason...

The research that I have done concerning this mass murderer has led me to a tale of tragedy and the misplaced heartache of a mother’s unforgivable loss. In 1957, Pamela Voorhees was hired on by David and Louise Christy as the cook for their newly purchased campground retreat. The Christy family were a prominent, albeit somewhat hippie kind of people that wanted to bring the great outdoors to children who were underprivileged and could not afford the high cost of most other camps. Pamela was a widower and a single mother caring for a disabled young boy. She brought him with her every time she came to work, allowing him to play about her feet or help her in the kitchen. The Christy’s loved Pamela and cared deeply for her son whom they lovingly nicknamed Lil J because he was, at the time, a small boy with a very large and misshapen head. After much encouragement and many promises to keep Lil J safe, Pamela finally allowed the Christys to care for the boy while she worked. They mixed him in with the other children at the camp, including him in their activities and teaching him survival skills right along with the others. This environment, however, was far from ideal for Lil J. Because of his deformity and his inability to communicate well with the other children, he was severely bullied and treated horribly. Because he could not speak, Lil J... Jason, could not tell his mother exactly what was being done to him. Despite this, Pamela soon realized what was happening with her boy and blamed the Christys for allowing Jason to be hurt by the other children. In response, the Christys put Jason in the care of one of the camp counselors to look after him exclusively and to make sure that no further harm came to the boy. This seemed to appease Pamela, but she warned the Christys that if Jason returned to her with any more bruises or scrapes brought on by the other kids at the camp, she would make them regret every scar left on her child’s body. 

I suppose the Christys knew that Pamela Voorhees meant every word she spoke to them, yet they did little to make sure that the counselors were doing their new job of looking after Jason. Oftentimes, Jason would be left to his own fate among the other children with only a scant warning from the counselors not to pick on Jason. Of course, these warnings went ignored for the most part. Although they stopped hurting Jason, it did not stop them from teasing him and causing him to have “accidents” while playing. Even though Pamela could see the effects of the bullying happening to her son, there was little that she could do to protect him and it was clear to Pamela that there was little the counselors would prevent as well. Pamela took to keeping Jason inside the kitchen with her and did not permit him to go and play outside with the other kids. Jason, however, wanted to continue playing with the kids mainly because he liked the activities offered by the camp. He did not want to remain by his mother’s side in the kitchen. It happened one day while Pamela was preparing dinner, Jason snuck away from his mother’s side and went out to the lake where a group of children was swimming. Eager to join them, Jason approached the kids. Two camp counselors were on duty lifeguarding the swimming activity. The two counselors, Barry and Claudette, were boyfriend and girlfriend and were more interested in each other than in watching the swimming. When it seemed that the kids swimming were going to be fine on their own, the young couple snuck away into the woods to be alone. They took no notice of Jason standing nearby. 

Accounts of what occurred that day lakeside vary from person to person. The main story reported by the police stated that Jason approached the dock and sat down with his feet in the water. The other kids tried to persuade him to join them in the lake to play, but Jason would not go all the way into the water. Instead, he hung back looking very fearful. Another kid decided that it would be fun to simply  _ assist _ Jason in the water. Some say that Jason jumped into the lake, being startled by the kid trying to help him, while others say he was pushed as part of a prank. Whatever the case was, Jason went under quickly. He was not a good swimmer, a fact that Pamela and the Christys knew and warned the counselors concerning Jason’s fascination with the water. Although the kids in the water tried frantically to search for Jason, no one could find him amid the murky and deep waters. 

Jason never resurfaced. 

When Pamela found out about the incident, she went into hysterics and ran out to the lake to try and find her son. Not being a good swimmer herself, she dove into the water anyway in hopes of finding her son. Two older counselors dove in after Pamela and pulled her from the water. It was said her screams could be heard for miles up and down the waterway. The counselors that were in charge of watching the swimmers were brought into the main office and asked what had happened and why it was that they left their post with children playing in the water unsupervised. Both Barry and Claudette explained that they thought that they saw something peculiar in the woods and went to check it out. Pamela saw directly through their lie and accused them of letting her son die while they went off to fuck.

Pamela Voorhees that day became the Christy’s worst nightmare, only they did not know it at the time. The police came and spent two days searching for Jason’s body, but came back empty. Pamela became more and more unbalanced the longer the search parties continued to return with no results. Eventually, Pamela decided to take matters into her own hands and went back out to the lake to search for Jason. It is not known if she actually did find him, or came up empty-handed. Shortly after she left the sheriff’s office, she retreated into the woods where her cabin was located and disappeared a while. The Christys had to shut down the camp and send home all of its campers. 

A year later, the camp reopened with the Christys trying once more to make good on their investment. They hired back all of their former staff, including Pamela, and sent out invitations to local parents and organizations to attract new campers. To appease Pamela and gain her trust back about the death of her son, the Christys made Pamela a board member of the camp’s controlling officers and enlisted her help in designing new safety measures for counselors to follow concerning their supervision of the campers. Pamela’s job was to create a set of guidelines for safety during each activity for the counselors to follow. The punishment for failing in even one of the guidelines resulted in severe reprimand up to and including prejudiced termination. Even with this new status and title given to her, Pamela was not satisfied. The minute she saw Barry and Claudette walk through the doors of the meeting hall where the Christys gathered their staff, Pamela vowed bloody revenge. 

One evening, a few days before the camp officially opened its gates to the public, Pamela found Barry and Claudette, once more hiding away together smoking marijuana and getting ready to have sex. Enraged, Pamela stabbed Barry in the gut and then Claudette, killing them both. Pamela disappeared into the night to never be seen or heard from again. Barry and Claudette were eventually found the next morning when a counselor went into the barn and discovered them lying on the floor of the loft. No one knew who killed them or why. There was little evidence left behind to identify anyone. The case continues to be an unsolved murder for Wessex County. 

I’ve often wondered why it was that the Christy family did not simply shut down the camp for good and sell it off to a developer or a property investor. Although the Christys were a little odd, they did not believe that the person that killed the counselors was the undead son of Pamela returning to gather his revenge. They believed that Jason was dead and could not ever return. After many attempts at trying to reopen the camp, dispelling the rumors, and trying in earnest to restore the town’s faith in the camp, the Christys were never quite able to make their dream come true with the camp. They attempted several more times to reopen the camp, with each time being wrought with inexplicable incidents causing the reopenings to either delay or be canceled altogether. Fires, contaminated water supplies, electrical problems, and even the occasional vandalism was reported to happen each time the Christys tried to open the camp. Year after year, they were told no by the town’s mayor when they went to request permission to open the camp. Each time they went before the magistrate to have the camp’s charter be reviewed and the town to perform all the necessary checks, the camp would fail. Shortly after this, both David and Louise died within months of one another abandoned by the community, disgraced, and dead broke. Their son, Steven, eventually acquired a portion of the camp paying $25,000 to the bank before the rest of the property was foreclosed. Steven hoped to maintain the legacy his family attempted to leave behind, but after the murders, it seemed the camp would forever be labeled with having a death curse. No doubt the rumors of a lone woodsman stalking the surrounding campgrounds were spurred on by local superstitions and tall tales from imaginative townspeople. Steven had his work cut out for him upon trying to resurrect the derelict camp and make it commercial again. By the time he finished renovating the small grounds that would become Camp Crystal Lake, he was more than a little in debt and desperate to get the camp running so that it could start generating revenue to begin paying back the $75,000 loan he took out just to get the place habitable again. 

Camp Crystal Lake, or Camp Blood as it was soon known among the townspeople, opened again in 1979 with the start of a camp counselor training center. Steven had recruited several new counselors to help him open the camp and act as senior counselors who would take on the responsibility of training and directing much of the camp’s activities. Once they were all up to speed with how to run the camp, junior counselors could be employed to do the duties of conducting the activities with the campers and leading small groups. In this way, he could ensure that everyone had someone looking over their shoulder to make sure that they were all doing the right thing and, most of all, making the camp safe for children of all ages. 

This was his hope, at least, until the counselors started showing up dead. By the end of the third day at the camp, Crystal Lake would be known for far worse than just a couple of murders and some vandalism. It would become the site of the worst massacre Wessex County had ever seen to date. Camp Crystal Lake would not only carry the curse but would also spur on another urban legend that would live on well past the tall fir trees that shade the forest and keep it within a constant gloom.

The campground remained closed until five years later in 1984 when another training center was opened near the original campgrounds. The Packanack Lodge was not considered part of Camp Crystal Lake, but it was near enough to it that one could walk the nearly hidden trail back over to where the camp was. It did not have to be stated twice that the counselors were not allowed to go roaming out towards the campsite nor were they permitted to take extended boat rides down the channel to view the camp from the safety of the open water. The counselors at Packanack Lodge were made fully aware of the dangers the old camp boasted and the tales of horror that lived beyond the thick brush. None of them ever expected their close proximity to the camp would mean their ultimate demise as the training center became absorbed in the curse that loomed over the old campgrounds. I was able to track down a few of the survivors of the Packanack Lodge Massacre and gain their recorded accounts about what happened that fatal night. Most of the testimonies were not direct experiences from the camp, but rather were reactions from what was discovered after the night the murders occurred and the police were summoned to contain and document the crime scene. Counselors like Theodore “Ted” Bowen, had a lot to be thankful for after he and a few others were left to party the rest of the night off at a local tavern. Had he gone back with the others, or opted to stay at the cabins, he would likely be among the bloodied victims.

“Never been happier to be too drunk to drive in all my life,” Ted had said when interviewed. “Who would have thought a seedy motel with water-stained walls and worn down carpet would be the safest place for me to be.”

In spite of this minor setback, I was able to get in touch with one survivor, possibly the best testimony I could ever gain from my years of researching the stories of Camp Blood. I am on my way now to River Park Hospital in Huntington West Virginia to meet up with Doctor Virginia Field, otherwise known as Ginny. She is a child psychologist specializing in childhood trauma. She is at the forefront of therapists who use TF-CBT or Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to treat children and adolescents who have experienced trauma either by their parents, caregivers, or other members of care directly influential to them. Dr. Field has spent years learning about childhood psychosis and the different ways in which a child could be mentally injured, possibly enough to cause them to act out in volatile and dangerous ways such as in the case of young Jason Voorhees. She surmised that Jason, being already mentally impaired due to his genetic makeup, was further traumatized by the torment of his fellow campers who pulled a terrible prank on him that nearly killed him. Since his near-drowning, Jason was, in a sense, stunted at the age he almost drowned and never recovered. As a grown man, he must have seen his mother get killed on the banks of the lake and decided to take revenge. His first victim was Alice Hardy, the lone survivor of the Camp Blood Massacre. He watched her decapitate his mother. Later, he followed her back to her family cabin just outside of Crystal Lake and murdered her in her kitchen. 

Dr. Field has agreed to speak with me about her experience at Packanack Lodge and what she saw there. Perhaps she will give me a clue as to what sort of man she encountered and whether or not she believes the stories of Jason returned from the dead are real. Certainly, it is known that  _ someone _ was there at the lodge and that  _ someone _ murdered those counselors and attacked Dr. Field and her boyfriend, Camp Director Paul Holt. Whether or not the man that attacked them was Jason Voorhees, all grown up and full of vengeful rage, is a matter for debate. There are plenty of people that still believe that the boy Jason drowned in the lake some fifty or so years ago now. Others believe that Jason lived and committed the murders, but was killed and replaced by copycat killers. Some believe Jason cannot be killed which is the reason why he continued to pop up ever so many years every time someone came in or near the old camp. And then there are those who don’t believe it is Jason at all, and never really was Jason, but is someone who  _ wants _ the legend of Jason to be so real that they are willing to do anything to keep that story pumping blood. I hold judgment for the moment, set on collecting the stories and testimonies from survivors who lived the nightmare others only whisper about in their tents. They say for every tale told, there is always a grain of truth. Hopefully, if I get enough of these tales, I will finally come to know the real story of Jason Voorhees and finally answer the question that set me on this journey in the first place…

Where is Tommy now?

Stephanie Hewitt...Signing off…

...For now…

* * *

  
  


River Park Hospital...Children’s and Adolescent Division

11:20 am...April 15th, 2019 

I had to wait for the weekend before I could meet with Dr. Field. The hospital would not allow me to tour the facility without someone guiding me throughout, and so I decided to wait for Dr. Field to direct me through her halls to her office where we could sit and speak privately. It was interesting walking alongside the woman that went toe to toe with the fabled Jason Voorhees. She was much grander in the stories I’ve heard about her. In-person, she seemed like any other woman in her early fifties walking among the uniformed staff and casually dressed patients of the hospital. Her smile was warm and unassuming. The kind of smile one would attribute to a doctor trying to look as pleasant and harmless as possible. Her blonde hair was cut short and swept behind her ears, curling only slightly at the ends. She wore a simple cross around her neck. Her dress was quiet and soft, offering very muted pastel colors of cream and blue to offset the austere pallor of her skin. She wore a simple cream colored sweater and a pencil length powder blue skirt with sensible loafers shoes giving off very motherly vibes. Upon entering her office, I was immediately taken by all the pictures she displayed of her family doing various outdoor activities, many of which were camping scenes. I sat down in the offered chair in front of her desk. I did not hide my curiosity at all the pictures and the images captured within them. 

“My family is very adventurous,” Dr. Field explained with a kind smile. “We probably spend more time in our camping tents than we do in our actual home.”

“It’s ironic that you and your family spend so much time camping when…”

Dr. Field smiled and looked off to the side as if remembering fondly her nightmare night at the lodge. A short laugh escaped her. 

“Odd, yes. I would say so...considering. I guess we never really thought about it. I never allowed that experience to stop me from living the kind of life I wanted to live. Instead of it becoming some kind of crutch used to pull me away from life, it became a sort of a catalyst to push me forward. I lived for a reason.” Dr. Field looked about her office at all the awards and accolades she had acquired over her years of practice. She landed a smile at me. “To help.”

I cleared my throat, realizing the silence between us was more than uncomfortable for me. I could see in Dr. Field’s eyes that she wholly believed in what she was saying. She had to. Otherwise, all those other deaths so long ago would have made no further sense other than to be casualties of an unfortunate night. Dr. Field continued to look at me with calm, gentle brown eyes and a painted smile that now bothered me. There was something not quite right about the smile like it had been practiced too many times to seem genuine anymore, yet she still continued to use it. I offered my own nervous grin as I pulled out my phone and a small notepad. 

“I’m sure you’re familiar with this sort of thing,” I said as I began to access the app for voice recording on my phone. I sat the phone down on the edge of the desk and pressed record. 

“Of course,” said Dr. Field, still smiling. 

“Dr. Field--”

“Ginny.”

“Excuse me?”

“Call me Ginny. Only my colleagues call me Doctor Field. I don’t see you as a colleague. I see you more as a friend.”

“Ginny it is then,” I smiled before continuing. “As we previously discussed before coming here, I am collecting stories from those who had experiences at Camp Crystal Lake in order to put together a kind of memoir dedicated to survivors. You were there with a group of counselors in 1984 at Packanack Lodge. Is that correct so far?”

Ginny nodded, then as if remembering she was being recorded, answered a quick yes reply. The smile remained fixed. 

“You were one of seven survivors on that night--”

“Seven?” Ginny looked slightly puzzled.

“Yes, that’s the general belief that seven survived. Five remained in town and did not return to the camp until morning. You and Paul Holt were the only ones that returned back to the camp and were the last to encounter...the killer--”

“Jason.”

“Well...The man that attacked and murdered all the other counselors and tried to kill you and--”

“Paul is dead,” Ginny said flatly. This time, her smile was not present at all. 

“That has never been proven.”

“He was never found either. When the paramedics found me, I was the only one in the cabin. Not even the dog was there. It was just me. No dog. No Paul...No Jason.”

“You think Paul was Jason’s final victim?”

Ginny clasped her hands in front of her and breathed in a very large sigh, gathering herself. Her dark eyes swam over the many files stacked on her desk, considering them and reminding herself of her virtuous crusade to help traumatized children. Her fingers unhooked from themselves and spread flat against the soft wood of her desk. The gold band on her ring finger glinted in the bright sunlight seeping in through the slanted blades of the blinds set against the tall windows of the office.

“Paul was not Jason’s final victim,” Ginny began slowly, thinking through her words. “It was reported a few years later that he attacked a group of kids again. This time at a family’s cabin retreat at Higgins Haven. He killed twelve then. I believe...one got out.”

“Christine Higgins. She was the only one left after all of her friends were murdered. She, somehow, cornered Jason in a barn and managed to kill him before escaping. She states that she got into a canoe and rowed out to the middle of the water. She says Jason, not being really dead even after being axed in the head, charged at her. Then something else came up from behind and pulled her into the water. The only problem with this story is that they didn’t find Christine in a boat, but rather hiding behind a bale of hay in the barn holding a pitchfork. The man that attacked her was still lying on the floor of the bar with an axe buried in his skull. He, along with his victims, were carried off to the city morgue. She was sent to a psychiatric hospital.”

“I’ve read about her case.” Ginny gave a very somber expression. “I have wanted to work with her specifically, but...Her mental state has greatly depreciated since that incident and she has now gone under the care of Dr. Niel Gordon at Westin Hills. Apparently...They have a whole ward dedicated to children suffering from unexplainable trauma.”

“Christine should be an old woman by now.” I looked back up at Ginny, realizing my words. Ginny and Christine were close in age. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

Ginny held up a hand, quieting my poor attempt at apologizing.

“You’re right. Christine would not be considered a child or an adolescent by her age, but her mind...That’s a whole other matter. Her experience retarded her growth, leaving her at the age she encountered Jason. Though she was still not really considered an adolescent, her mind could still be treated with some of the same techniques used to ease adolescents back into being functional members of society. With a combination of medicines and PTSD therapy, Christine could, on some level, be able to take care of herself.”

“Is this what you underwent? Therapy for Post Traumatic Stress to deal with your experience?”

Ginny leaned back into her chair and placed her hands on her stomach, lacing her fingers together. Her smile returned, although slightly diminished. 

“I did go through therapy. I figured out what was real and what wasn’t. I even returned to the lodge...Once I felt that I was ready to confront my fears there. I went to the very cabin Paul and I were attacked in.”

“And?”

Ginny drew in another breath. 

“And...Not much to tell. There were some remnants of crime tape lying about. Broken glass. Wood shards...nothing too different from the night I spent there with Paul. I didn’t stay long. There was no need to, really. It was over.”

“When you were there, did you feel something when you were there? Did you feel anything...unusual?”

“What, you mean like a ghostly feeling?” Ginny scoffed a little at the idea. “I didn’t feel anything. What happened there, happened. There was no energy left behind, no sense of foreboding or even the scant awareness of memories flooding back. Maybe it’s my mind protecting me from what I saw, not allowing me to remember everything clearly. I did go through a lot that night, but I can’t fully recall all of the events that took place. I was pretty drunk when I got back to the lodge...So I can’t exactly rely on my memories to give an accurate picture of what I saw.”

“I did get to speak with Theodore Bowen a few weeks ago.”

“Ted? You spoke with Ted? How is he doing? What is he up to? What is he doing now?”

Ginny sat up and leaned forward. There was a renewed energy in her eyes. I got the impression that she had not spoken with anyone from her group at Packanack since that fatal night.

“Ted is doing well. He runs a chain of novelty stores in Maryland. He is married with two sons, both of which help him in his stores...I was the only person he has ever spoken in depth with about that night. His wife says at a certain time each year, he goes off on his own on a camping trip. Doesn’t carry much with him, just a few supplies, a change of clothes, and two bottles of Jim Beam...She never asks him why.”

“We all have our ways of coping I suppose. I’m glad he did not come back with us that night. I’m glad he stayed away.”

Ginny looked far off for a moment before returning to the room and our conversation. 

“Whatever the case, whatever that was there then, was not there when I returned to the camp. It, and all the ghosts that it came with, were gone. Had it not been for the broken glass and the police tape, no one would have ever known anything happened there. They would have supposed a wild animal invaded the cabin and messed about a bit before leaving.”

I nodded, feeling like I was at the natural end to my interview, but I had so many more questions that I wanted to ask. I looked at Ginny, her face looking just as pleasant as the moment we first laid eyes on one another. Her practiced smile was there, but there was a sadness hanging on the corners of her lips, threatening to drag them down should she slip in her will to hold her smile in place. I looked again at the charming photos of her family, so happily captured in time and displayed like trophies woven throughout the tapestry of her office. It hit me then that the very space that we were sitting in felt more like a cocoon than an office. Ginny had wrapped herself in all the things she loved and cherished to remind her of who she was and what she could do in hopes of dispelling the real fear that lay just beyond her office door. She said it herself that her family felt more at home in the close and confined space of their camping tents than they did in their own home, which I was sure was likely a beautiful and spacious home. Here in the office, everything seemed to be forced against the walls giving little to no room for something to hide behind anything. Cabinets were flush against the walls, and chairs were designed to offer little obscurity to what was behind it. Her office was on the fourth floor of the building making it highly unlikely for something or someone to climb in through the windows. Her office hours were during the day, leaving well before nightfall. It was very rare that she stayed past six o’clock. In those moments, it was said that she was often agitated and seemed more ill at ease and very motivated to finish work before it became too dark. I looked at Ginny again, now understanding her fully. Even though she sat before me with her smile and her eyes warmly regarding me, I could see in her a rigidity and anxiousness that peaked in the way she held her hands. Though she appeared very relaxed, her fingers constantly grasped at one another, seeking to find comfort in the reality she had constructed about herself. In this reality, she was in charge, she was in command of what would and would not happen. She could control exactly how much or how little was exposed to her. There were no surprises. Not even my phone, which I saw she took careful note of exactly where I had placed it on her desk, was something that did not go unnoticed and documented in her mental files. If it were to suddenly begin to ring, she would expect it to as well as expect me to answer the call promptly, linking the cause and effect of actions she already connected in her brain. There was nothing that she would not anticipate first.

“Can I ask you one more thing?”

Ginny nodded, assenting to the question that she already probably knew would be asked at some point during our meeting. 

“You said you saw Jason’s face. His real face...without the mask. What did he look like?”

I could tell by the way Ginny’s eyes widened a little that she was not expecting this question. Perhaps she thought I might ask about the counselors that were killed, or how she managed to trick Jason long enough to escape him. She was a psychology major after all, so I already knew she must have employed some of her training to confuse and possibly gain some type of insight into Jason’s psyche in order to gain an advantage. These were not questions that I wanted to know about. It was not a huge stretch of the imagination to figure out that Ginny could and did use her superior intellect to thwart Jason’s attack leaving him to resort to nothing else but brute force to try and destroy her once and for all. However, Ginny was already injured and would not have been able to put up much of a fight against Jason, even with a machete lodged in his collar bone. If he had enough strength to jump through a glass window to attack her, even with the machete, he had enough strength to take them both out. This was the story that everyone that knew anything about the Packanack Lodge murders knew and told over and over around campfires. What was not said, was what Ginny saw when Jason was unmasked. It was always thought that he had a hideous face, gnarled and misshapen from years of being untreated and uncared for in the woods of Crystal Lake. However, these accounts were only speculations, hearsay from those who had never seen Jason in person. 

“You did see him, right?”

Ginny nodded. Her face seemed to drain all blood and color. Her dark eyes were cold as she stared off into nothingness. I could see the memory of the moment Jason appeared to her, unmasked, physically come into view in her mind’s eye. 

“He was not grotesque like people say...He looked like...A normal man...a bit bloody from his injuries, but...Kind of like anyone else you would pass on the street...He didn’t look like a monster.”

“Jason had hydrocephalus characterized by having a very large head, impaired speech, and movement, as well as other cognitive problems that would have affected the way he moved, reasoned, and processed his surroundings. Most children born with this abnormality if left untreated, tend to be both physically and mentally impaired. It would be nearly impossible for them to behave in the manner in which accounts state he behaved or do any of the things that he was reported doing. From your experience, do you think the man that attacked you was Jason Voorhees?”

“I think the man that attacked and killed my friends was Jason...just...not the Jason that drowned in the lake. That Jason would not have looked like the Jason that I saw at the cabin that night. He would not have been able to do the things that he did. The Jason that attacked me...was a grown man that knew exactly what it was that he was doing and was very determined to avenge the death of the woman he considered to be his mother.”

“If what you are implying is true, that would mean that the man that murdered everyone at Packanack Lodge and Higgins Haven, was not the  _ actual _ Jason Voorhees, but someone acting on behalf of him. Maybe he felt the need to avenge both Jason and Pamela’s deaths at the hands of camp counselors. Maybe Pamela put him up to it before she died.”

“It is possible that the Jason we know of legend is not the same Jason that drowned in the lake. He could be someone that Ms. Voorhees took care of and adopted. There are a ton of missing person cases in and around the camp. He would have been thought of as being just as much her son as Jason was, and...probably after Jason’s death, took on his name as tribute so that Pamela would never be without her boy. He was her protector, her guardian, but on the night she attacked the counselors at Crystal Lake, he was not around to save her. He was around, however, to witness her death. Afterward, he collected her body and all the things around her, including her head, and stored them away in his shanty...Her mission became his mission. Her cause, his cause. He had taken up the mantle to protect Pamela, and now that she was forever tied to the camp, he would do anything that he can to protect it as well...Even if that meant killing anyone that stepped foot on its grounds.”

“In that case, Jason Voorhees would be both myth and real, a fantasm of sorts brought about by the tragic deaths of both the real boy Jason and his real mother which the fabled Jason witnessed.”

“It was no secret that Pamela Voorhees went absolutely bonkers after the death of her son. She probably thought that the city did not do enough to try and find him, so she blamed everyone for his death. She was heard saying that no one cared enough to bother looking for him. They all just abandoned him to the water like a forgotten thing. She held everyone responsible. Especially the camp counselors that were supposed to be watching him at all times.”

“After she killed the counselors and ruined the camp’s opening, why did she continue killing? Why did she not just stop there when she had done away with those that she held the most responsible? Why attack the camp again and kill more kids?”

Ginny stood to her feet and wrapped her arms about herself. She stared out the window, turning her back to me. This gesture gave me a little comfort as it was the first time she ever turned her direct attention from me and towards something else. She was unguarded at this point, but I knew, without really needing any indication otherwise, that she was still fully aware of me. I remained seated, notepad in hand and my pen poised to write down key points in our conversation. She stared out the window as if seeing something other than the black parking lot below. I imagined she was seeing the lake at that moment, calm and peaceful as ripples of water traveled along the surface.

“You ever lose something you love very deeply...so much so that you hope that no one ever experiences the same type of pain you felt when you lost the thing you loved? If you could, you would do anything to prevent others from ever having to deal with pain. In Pamela’s own way, she was not doing anything that would be outside of what a mother would do to save other small children from ever being mistreated or killed in an accident because of someone else’s neglect.”

“I could not imagine the kind of pain that Ms. Voorhees felt when she found out that her son had drowned. Especially if she trusted her child’s care to people that swore to protect him and didn’t. I couldn’t imagine how I would feel...or what I might do in response. Maybe I would try everything in my power to prevent others from ever feeling the same kind of pain I felt. Maybe I would…”

“Murder?” Ginny turned to me suddenly.

I grimaced. “Maybe not that.”

She smiled again, her normal expression, pulling back in her thoughts and displaying once more her mask. 

“We can never say what we would do in any given situation...until we are presented with that situation. Maybe you wouldn’t turn to murder...maybe you would...Who’s to say you wouldn’t come to the same conclusions Pamela did when she found out that the camp was being reopened again even after the murders by the son of the people that caused her only child’s death so many years ago. She wanted to be sure that the camp never opened again. The only way she could ensure that was by blood. Lots of it. If they wouldn’t listen to her then with only two dead and the camp constantly failing city inspections and code violations, then they would certainly not be able to ignore the wholesale slaughter of counselors on the campgrounds. The camp would be condemned and unable to be reopened again.”

Ginny crossed over to my side of the desk and leaned back against it. She supported herself with her hands, and gave me the most grave look I had ever seen on a person. I sat up straight in my chair.

“What Pamela did was not out of hatred or anger, although she certainly did carry enough of it to spur her to action. Pamela’s actions were out of love...Love for children who she felt she was protecting. All those people she killed, all the lives that were wasted were sacrifices to the much larger evil that she tried to shield those who could not protect themselves from. She was the camp’s first protector. Jason became its second.”

“But your lodge was not a part of the camp. It was its own separate property.”

“Don’t you see?” Ginny smiled at me again. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Packanack or Higgins Haven, or any other property. It’s all Crystal Lake. And it all belongs to him. To Jason.”

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